The
Cat With a Bucket List: The Story of Triscuit
by
Forrest D. Poston

Perhaps we should have suspected something when a 12
year-old cat suddenly decided to become a mouser for the
first time. Triscuit was sweet and cute but hardly a
hunter. On one occasion, Lancelot (alpha cat and
head mouser) caught a mouse and dropped it just as
Triscuit came to investigate. The mouse sped past
Triscuit, causing the startled Tonkinese to leap straight
up.

Still, it was no big deal when we noticed Triscuit on
watch by the dishwasher, which seems to be where the rare
mouse enters when there’s one silly or young enough to
risk a three-cat house. All three cats seemed to
spend some time in that spot, although only Lancelot and
Glyph had been known to actually catch a mouse.

When I heard the scramble in the dining room, I recognized
it as a mouse attack and figured Lance was at it again,
trying to play keep away with his mouse, but it turned out
to be Triscuit with a bit of mouse leg and tail sticking
out of his mouth. Despite problems with diabetes and
inflammatory bowel disease (two problems whose standard
treatments conflict with one another), Triscuit seemed the
happiest and healthiest he’d been in a year or more.
Only later did we figure out that our cat had a bucket
list.

Item One: Catch a mouse. Check.

Nothing about this cat should have been surprising if we
thought about it. There had always been the sense of
something beyond coincidence from the moment we met, the
moment a kitten made me wonder about things like
synchronicity, destiny and reincarnation.

We were going to visit some friends late one evening when
this tawny fluffball rushed across the street bounding
side to side the way young animals do when especially
excited. His body language seemed to shout, “Where
you been? I’ve been waiting for ages.” It was like
meeting an old friend after years apart. Maybe we
weren’t imagining it.

Ginny reached down to pet him and discovered that his tail
had gotten in the way of some unhappy bowels.
“Eww.” The kitten who would become Triscuit licked
himself once, looked up with his tongue out and clearly
echoed the sentiment. I borrowed papertowels from
our friends to take care of the unfortunate tail, and we
went inside figuring that in this residential neighborhood
the kitten’s home was not far away.

When we came out a few hours later, around midnight, there
was a chill in the air and a kitten on the stoop.
That suggested a homeless cat. It should have also
told us just how patient, more precisely how stubborn,
this creature could be. I picked him up, and he
quickly moved up to my shoulder where he began kneading
against my head, nursing on my hair, and purring in my
ear. The matter was settled.

The next day, our vet told us we’d been conned. That
nursing on hair routine is something that Siamese breeds
tend to do. Triscuit soon proved her right, and as a
kitten he took almost every opportunity to snuggle close
to an ear, knead and purr. Since those claws could
sometimes slip through my hair, and since this stubborn
cat could keep this up for a long time, I pretty much
broke him of the habit with me, and he concentrated on
Ginny. Silly me.

Item Two: Spend Some Quality Time With
the Folks

During the two months before he died, I would have
said Triscuit was feeling better than he had at any time
in the last two years. When he was on the back of
the couch where he could get petted by anyone passing,
each stroke resulted in a broad stretch of a paw.
When he was lying on the floor, he would fairly often do a
full-body stretch, smooth and easily, then role onto his
back with his front paws tucked against his chest in the
position we called “baby seal” (also known as,”Isn’t
someone going to rub my belly?”). He even played a
bit with a string once or twice, which had become quite
rare.

His frequent visits when I was at the computer became
almost constant. He would sit beside the monitor
fairly quietly until he just had to get petted.
Then, he would shove his head under my hand, typing be
damned, and usually manage to step on the keyboard.
He was especially good at deleting e-mails, and he
sometimes made the screen change in ways I’ve never
duplicated.

Anytime I was horizontal, bed or couch, he was there,
starting on my chest, kneading against my neck, always
managing to pull down any cloth I used to protect myself
from those refined points of his. Soon, he would
move to a spot on the pillow beside my head and begin to
knead there while purring in my ear just as he had as a
kitten. I didn’t know how short our time was, but I
wasn’t going to try breaking him of the habit again.
Whatever else I was supposed to do, except feed the cats,
could wait.

This sweet oasis made no sense medically. He wasn’t
eating right, but that wasn’t really a new thing. We
went through that for various reasons every few
weeks. Sure, we were going to have to go in for some
tests soon just for the usual checks, but he was clearly
happy most of the time, so there was no sense of
urgency. We had time to sort out this new eating
pattern.

If we had taken him in a few weeks earlier, the treatments
might have bought us a little extra time, but there would
surely have been some discomforts to go with it. We
would have gained time at the expense of quality.
Worse than that, I think we would have been rejecting a
gift as well as keeping Triscuit from finishing his list.

Item two. Check.

Item Three: Talk with Glyph About His New
Responsibilities.

Perhaps the oddest parts in all this have been the changes
in Glyph’s behavior, changes that could almost convince me
that Triscuit had talked things over with the youngest
family member to get him ready. In the weeks since
Triscuit died, Glyph has taken on, with his own
variations, a number of Triscuit’s habits. I can
almost imagine the conversation.

“Listen, kid, you’re going to have some extra
responsibilities around here soon. This guy takes a
lot of watching. First, when he takes a shower,
you’ve got to be there.”

“Why?”

“ I haven’t a clue, but we’ve been doing it for
years. Sergeant Major taught me, and I’m passing it
along. With that much water, a lot of things could
go wrong. Just be careful when he gets out. He
drips.”

“Next, there’s the kitchen. When you hear the
refrigerator open or plates clink, you’ve got a minute to
be there rubbing his ankles.”

“But I don’t like people food. Well, except tuna.”

“Doesn’t matter. This one’s just to keep him paying
attention. Also, don’t do it every time. It’s
good to keep him confused. I’ve noticed you’ve got a
talent for that.”

“The last thing is that computer. Don’t let him
spend too much time staring at it without some
distraction. Jump up on the desk beside the monitor,
and make him pay attention to you. Every now and
then, step on the keyboard and see what happens.
Drives him nuts if you hit the right key, especially
delete. Oh, and whenever you can, purr.”

Item Three: Check.

Item Four: Confound the Experts

Triscuit was never simple. He ate the specialized
foods for different problems when that’s the food we put
in his bowl, but he seemed to get whatever the food was
supposed to prevent. When the diabetes and a kidney
infection were first diagnosed, the numbers said he
wouldn’t make it past a few days, but it took years for
the numbers to catch him.

In those last two weeks, we had vets in three states
working on the problem. For better or worse, the
test numbers never seemed to go in the direction expected,
and his physical appearance usually contradicted the
tests. Everyone was sure there was some underlying
problem, a lymphoma that the tests didn’t show, something
that kept skewing expectations, but no one could figure
out what or where, certainly not why it caused the
peculiarities.

Item four: Check.

Item
Five: Say Goodbye

At one point in his treatment, it looked like Triscuit had
a chance. Test results looked better, and he was
more aware of his surroundings, but there was always that
underlying issue that the tests couldn’t seem to find,
probably lymphoma. However, when we went to see him
that Thursday afternoon, we knew we were getting close to
the decision we didn’t want to make, maybe a day or two.

He was good enough to go off the IV for a while so he
could curl on Ginny’s lap, nestling his head near, then
on, her arm just enough to show that he knew we were
there, knew and was happy about it. I’m not sure who
was consoling whom. He was also starting to show
discomfort, not from the medical treatment but from the
sickness itself. Before we left, we switched orders
to put him on the “do not resuscitate” list. It was
the only fair way if something happened, but we expected a
declining point when we would have to intervene.

We had only been home a few hours when the call came.
“Triscuit just stopped breathing.” Somehow, the
expected still comes as a surprise. You hear stories
about people holding on for some special event and then
going quickly afterwards. Those who study the
statistics claim it isn’t true, but I’m not
convinced. I really think that our visit was his
release. Just because he couldn’t speak our language
doesn’t mean he couldn’t say goodbye.

Item five. Check.

Most of life still puzzles me, so I’m not ready to make
many claims about what happens next, who we may meet,
when, or where. I like to think we’ll have more
time. He might look completely different, or maybe,
just maybe, a tiny, tawny ball of fluff will come bounding
up saying, “Where you been? I’ve been waiting for
ages.”